August 06, 2006

Reuters Doctoring Beirut Photos (Updated)

Scroll down for updates.

The photo below is attributed to Adnan Hajj, of the Reuters news agency. The photo alleges to show smoke covering the Beirut sky. The problem with the photo is that it is that it has been doctored to make it appear that an Israeli missile strike did much more damage than it actually did.

Adnan Hajj also took the photos of dead children at Qana. Allegations have arisen that the Qana photos were part of a staged event put on by Hezbollah operatives.

There is no doubt that the photo below is doctored. And not very well. It uses a common Photoshop technique called cloning, where one part of a picture is copied and replicated onto another part of the photo. The billowing smoke and several buildings in the photo are clones of other parts of the photo.

But this may not be the first time Reuters has distributed doctored photos by Adnan Hajj. Below is another example of Hajj's work. It was allegedly taken on July 13th and supposedly shows damage done to Beirut's civilian airport by an Israeli missile attack.

However, the photo appears to actually be a composite of two different scenes. One is of the airport which seems to be cut and pasted on to the Beirut skyline.

Now, here is a larger version of the same image with the cut and paste line pointed out. Click for larger view.

Perhaps someone with better skills can do a better job with the photo? I hope that puts to rest any notion that Hajj was motivated by not getting any good shots, as Allah suggest. It seems as if Michelle has found another candidate here.

So, who is this Adnan Hajj and does Reuters know that he is doctoring photos? I doubt that any one at Reuters was involved, as Lawhawk seems to think is plausible. It seems the more likely story is that since the people at Reuters want to believe the Hezbollah propaganda version of events, they are less likely to question the validity of photos that simply reaffirm what they already know.

Seems to me someone was just writing a lot about the MSM setting itself for a major scandal by credulously taking every report or picture submitted by a foreign stringer with likely poltiical biases, unknown loyalties, and dubious ethics, and splashing them on the front pages as if they'd all been carefully scrutinized and vetted.

Update: Here's Hajj speaking to the students at the Lebanese American University. I'm guessing he's the guy in the middle because of the way the caption read at the LAU website.

Perhaps the poor photoshopping skills can be attributed to his age? Photoshopping skills belong to the young. But the fact that he was asked to speak to students seems to suggest that he has the appearance of being a legitimate journalist.

UPDATE:And plagiarism, too? (scroll to the end update) I guess that's the academic terminology. Lawyers call it copyright infringement, I think.

UPDATE II: Er, what the??? Another Hajj "photo" from July 24th with the caption "Smoke rises from a Hizbollah stronghold in southern Beirut after being hit by Israeli warplanes." Call me crazy, but what the hell is a straight line doing in the middle of the Beirut skyline? Update within an update: And by "straight line" I mean the stark contrast between the upper 90% of the photo, and the lower 10%. It's very odd to have such stark lines in nature. A reader suggests that it is the airport, but if you check out the other two photos which are in the series, that doesn't appear to be the case. The other two photos by Hajj (here and here), taken the same day and of the same scene, show a similar sky, but none of the houses in Beirut have turned on their lights yet. It's almost as if.......

UPDATE III: And another one. I wish I had the original, larger photo. But this one is suspicious. Look closely. --Update within an update: Look at the explosion in the background. Seems a bit out of proportion. I could be wrong.

UPDATE IV: So, you're telling me that this neutral media observer just happens to be pointing his camera in the right direction as the missile is being fired by Hezbollah to take out the single Israeli ship damaged in the war? If he wasn't tipped off by Hezbollah, then I'm going to give him a ring and ask him for this week's lottery numbers!

On second thought, how do we know Hajj didn't see a flare, snap a photo, and then wire it in with the amazing news that he just happened to see Hezbollah fire at the Israeli ship? Update within an update: Reader tells me it's no flare. Since my experience with flares is limited to debunking the Phoenix "UFO" sightings, I'll take his word for it. Now about those lotto tickets Mr. Hajj........

UPDATE V: The plot thickens. A man with a very similar name to Adnan Hajj particpated in other anti-Israel media ops. Update within an update: Adnan Hajj = Adnan Hajj Ali. Think Israel has this long expose of Pallywood manipulation of the media by use of Arab stringers.

It appears that pictures taken by Hajj and other Arab stringers of a child surrounded by bodies in a morgue after the IDF destroyedsome homes in a raid in Rafah were used by the Palestinians to accuse Israel of "genocide".

Why does this sound so familiar?

While perusing the online photo archives of Reuters, I couldn't help but notice that the same corpse of a child was repeatedly photographed with different people carrying it. Was it staged or candid? I really don't know, but deliberate or not, it does give the illusion of additional casualties. Suspicions are raised even further now that IMRA disclosed that two Palestinian children who died in the Rafah procession incident were murdered by Palestinian gunmen and that the IDF photographed the shooting. If you doubt the authenticity of this report, please note that it was first reported in Haaretz by Amir Oren on May 21st.

Meanwhile in the oft photographed morgue, a lone child is repeatedly photographed in different locations of the room as he sits over assorted groupings of bodies. A spontaneous photographic opportunity or was it posed for propaganda purposes? ....

These are the names of the photographers and photojournalists from AP, Reuters and AFP who covered the action for the Palestinian side of the street in Gaza these past two weeks....Adnan Hajj Ali

Boy, it's almost like we have another Bilal Hussein. Do you think Adnan will win the puliltzer like our buddy Bilal?

UPDATE VI: I'm going to bed. Since I'm on West Coast time, I won't be able to keep up with this in the morning. If you have a good observation or more info regarding this, please leave it in the comments.

Also, for other Jawa authors, consider this an open invitation to add your own two cents to this post.

I LOVE the blogs. They are on the Front Line in this war. We are so blessed to have them in these dark days. It makes me proud to be an American that these very feisty, brilliant blog-warriors are working day and night.

The term " smoke and mirrors" was popularzied by newspaper columnits Jimmy Breslin c.1975, has been said to derive from carnie slang for magic acts and 'freak show' displays that depnd on 'trompe l'oeil' effects

bboop wrote: I LOVE the blogs. They are on the Front Line in this war. We are so blessed to have them in these dark days. It makes me proud to be an American that these very feisty, brilliant blog-warriors are working day and night.

While we sleep the Front line Bloggers are protecting Truth, Justice and the American Way ;-)

It used to be said that a picture is worth a thousand words. That is still true.

A doctored photo is worth a thousand words of condemnation for those who doctored it. photo shop may be fun for a joke or to clean up some zits on the face of the one pictured, but when photo-shopped pictures are accepted and used by a major news source its proof of a bias in that source and means that source is not credible and should be ignored, if not destroyed.

11
posted on 08/06/2006 6:42:58 AM PDT
by sgtbono2002
(The fourth estate is a fifth column.)

I wonder when the NY Slimes will run a job opportunity for a professional photoshop cropper capable of turning innocent photos into glaring examples of Israeli aggression. Resumes to be submitted to al-Reuters of course.

Reuters withdraws photograph of Beirut after Air Force attack after US blogs, photographers point out 'blatant evidence of manipulation.' Reuters' head of PR says in response, 'Reuters has suspended photographer until investigations are completed into changes made to photograph' Yaakov Lappin

A Reuters photograph of smoke rising from buildings in Beirut has been withdrawn after coming under attack by American web logs. The blogs accused Reuters of distorting the photograph to include more smoke and damage.

The photograph showed two very heavy plumes of black smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut after an Air Force attack on the Lebanese capital. Reuters has since withdrawn the photograph from its website, along a message admitting that the image was distorted, and an apology to editors.

Want to go nuts? Try to determine who actually owns Reuters. Traded in Europe stock exchanges under the symbol RTG, it is also traded in the USA as RTRSY. Nonetheless, in providing info for the US market it does not list its major owners, institutional or otherwise. Its founder Paul Julius Reuters, a Jew, must be flipping in his grave as Reuters today offers some of the most anti-Semitic fare published in Europe, and subsidiarily in the USA.

Reuters - Sun Aug 6, 8:35 AM ET A Lebanese man runs away from the burning ruins of a building destroyed during an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut's suburbs August 5,2006. Many buildings were flattened during the attack. REUTERS/Adnan Hajj

"...Well, if you told me you were drowning I would not lend a hand I've seen your face before my friend But I don't know if you know who I am Well, I was there and I saw what you did I saw it with my own two eyes So you can wipe off the grin, I know where you've been It's all been a pack of lies..."

28
posted on 08/06/2006 7:11:23 AM PDT
by yankeedame
("Oh, I can take it but I'd much rather dish it out.")

A picture of smoke taken by Adnan Hajj on July 13...I would suspect this one is not photo shopped.

Smoke rises from Beirut international airport after being hit by Israeli warplanes July 13,2006. Israeli aircraft attacked Beirut airport and killed 22 civilians in strikes on south Lebanon on Thursday, dramatically widening its reprisals after Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight. REUTERS/Adnan Hajj (LEBANON)

Here's another one for you ... another appearance by the infamous "Mr Green Helmet" who so ubiquitously posed as a "Lebanese rescue worker" with child corpses at Qana, and featured again poking smoking rubble for "innocent victims" next day 18 miles away...

Here yet again, courtesy of CBS News, is "Mr Green Helmet", the most widely traveled, most widely photographed Lebanese rescue worker in history...this time supposedly taping red crosses on coffins in the Baalbeck, from a CBS News video featuring the "day after" the IDF commando raid on the Baalbeck. Check out photo at 2:53 into tape -

In both of these photos, the brightness of the explosions seems somehow inconsistent with the brightness/contrast of the foregrounds. In particular it seems that the explosion in the left photo should reduce the brightness and contrast of the building directly in front of it. But it doesn't.

In this one, white haired dude claims to speak as head of family of hezzbollah suicide bomber, offering to send the rest of his sons to martyrdom (point 1:24 on video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HlaVpqUXF0

I believe this story is orders of magnitude greater in importance than some isolated embarrassed photographer who "embellished" his work for some good copy. It shows that the entire news stream from the ME is being manipulated, orchestrated, and choreographed by Iran, Hezbollah, and their sympathizers.

Save the pic, open it with WIndows picture and Fax viewer or whatever you have and zoom in.

Note the difference in pixellation between the buildings in the foreground and the sky and explosion, etc. I am not a photoshop geek, but maybe someone here could explain if that is 'kosher' (sorry, couldn't resist) or not.

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